"There were several transactions that were available to us for backup point guards that ultimately would have cost us flexibility going forward," Colangelo said. "In most cases, they were looking for draft picks and that's something we weren't entertaining."

They are certainly bigger, which would present a problem for the Raptors in any playoff series. With 7-foot-3 Zydrunas Ilgauskas next to the 6-foot-10 Smith with Wallace and Anderson Varejao also available, they become the biggest team in the East.

But the offence may be a problem. Neither Wallace nor Smith is a consistent scoring threat and while Szczerbiak is an accomplished three-point shooter, his defensive liabilities will be a concern. They also learned yesterday that guard Daniel Gibson could miss six weeks with a severe ankle sprain.

Ford, who has missed the past two games with an abdominal strain, worked out yesterday at the ACC, but did not practice with the team. Ford, who missed 24 games because of an arm stinger before returning to action on Feb. 4 against Miami, travelled with the team yesterday to New York, but likely will not play. He may be able to play on Sunday when the Knicks visit the ACC.

Colangelo said that he entertained a number of trade offers from other teams, but added that he wasn't about to make a "knee-jerk reaction" to some of the mega-trades that have taken place in the NBA in the past couple of weeks, particularly in the Western Conference, a situation he described as "an arms race".

Dixon's role had changed with the makeup of this year's team — and his representatives had expressed dissatisfaction with that.

"Not that he was handling himself in an unprofessional way," Colangelo said, "but I want to very clear, I only want players here that want to be here and want to be part of this culture and we're all about making this a winning organization."

"We made dramatic improvements last year. To some degree a lot of the cards in the deck were played," Colangelo said. "Now it's a matter of being a little more patient and waiting for those opportunities. … At this point we have to look at where we are, the contracts that we have, next year we're going to be in an interesting situation."

That strike is far more likely to happen next season, when Colangelo will be able to swing around the expiring contracts of Nesterovic (US$8.4-million), Anthony Parker (US$4.55-million) Jorge Garbajosa (US$4.35-million) and Maceo Baston (about US$2-million). That might be enough to galvanize a Gasol-like deal for the kind of elite wing player that this team sorely lacks. If not, then the Raptors are projected to have significant salary-cap space in the summer of 2009, depending on how much it costs to re-sign Jose Calderon.

"I'm going to stress that flexibility is very vital to us," said Colangelo. "Next year we're going to have a lot of expiring contracts."

With the Raptors, Brezec's most important role will be defensive. Toronto's two most-likely first-round opponents are Orlando and Cleveland. Both the Magic's Dwight Howard and the Cavaliers' Zydrunas Ilgauskas would be tough matchups for the Raptors' offensive-oriented big men, Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani.

Along with his countryman, Rasho Nesterovic, Brezec provides the Raptors another option to slow those players down.